Wrong answer before first safe level
On Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, a wrong answer automatically ends the game and drops the contestant's winnings down to the last safe level they passed on the Money Tree, but if they give a wrong answer before they reach the first safe level (usually worth 1,000 units of the local currency), they leave with absolutely nothing at all. During the U.S. Primetime era, the term for this was llama, referring to the wrong answer that the very first $0 winner, Robby Roseman, gave to his $100 question, which was “Hannibal crossed the Alps using what animals?“ and Robby chose Llamas, making him leave with absolutely nothing. In the modern-day internet age, the term llama has been replaced by the more generic terms fail/failure, epic fail/failure and fail(ed) epically. (In internet slang, due to an internet meme, the word fail is often used as a nominalized interjectory noun, as opposed to a verb, the way the word is traditionally supposed to be used; traditionally, the word fail denotes being unsuccessful or falling short of expectations, but as an internet meme, it is used as a derisive label to slap on a miscue that is eminently mockable in its stupidity or wrongheadedness. Writing packed with nominalizations is commonly regarded by academic professionals as slovenly, obfuscatory, pretentious or merely ugly. ) Another term for a contestant who leaves with nothing is zeronaire, a portmanteau of the words zero and millionaire, which is a term that denotes a person being broke or having little or no money. In terms of losing horribly, giving a wrong answer before the first safe level is defined as a type 1 failure; a type 2 failure is defined as a contestant giving a wrong answer to one of the last two questions and losing a massive amount of prize money; losing on the 15th and final question results in the dreaded Million pound lose cue. The more generic term loser can refer to both contestants who leave with nothing by flunking out on one of the first 5 questions, as well as contestants who lose massive amounts of prize money by flunking out on one of the last 2 questions; a contestant who flunks out within the first 5 questions and wins nothing is an empty-handed loser or zeronaire; a contestant who flunks out on the 14th and penultimate (second-to-last) question is a penultimate prize loser; and a contestant who flunks out on the 15th and final question is a top prize loser. It should be noted that it is entirely optional to include a disappointing graphic message that states "Total Prize Money: 0 units of the local currency" when a contestant flunks out prior to reaching the first safe level; not all countries do it. For example, on the U.S. version, every $0 winner other than the very first $0 winner, Robby Roseman, received the disappointing graphic message of "Total Prize Money: $0" (or, during the Clock Format, "Total Winnings: $0") after flunking out prior to obtaining the $1,000 milestone, but on the UK version, on the rare occasion when someone actually did go away with nothing, there was usually no graphic message; the screen would only say "Total Prize Money" if the contestant actually won something; otherwise, if the contestant did not win anything, then the screen would just go blank; the only exception was Martin Baudrey, whose £0 flunk out incident took place on the live 300th show; only in that one case did the screen actually say, "Total Prize: £0". It should also be noted that flunk outs of this type are more common in some areas of the world than others. For example, the U.S. version is notorious for its $0 flunk outs, as it has recorded numerous incidents of unlucky contestants winning nothing after giving a wrong answer to one of the first five questions, whereas on the UK version, failure of this type was quite rare; fewer than 10 contestants in its entire history had left the show with nothing. The Japanese version is known for it's ¥0 flunk outs as well, numerous contestants have gone home with nothing. In the age of the modern day internet, a contestant who flunks out and leaves with nothing is guaranteed to be uploaded to YouTube, where they will be mocked, ridiculed, insulted, and laughed at by online users who will post nasty comments to their video. Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, during the U.S. primetime era, the internet was still in its infancy, and YouTube did not exist at that time, but incidents of contestants who flunked out prior to obtaining the $1,000 safe level prize were often included on clip shows. But by the mid-2000s, the internet had began to hit its stride, and with the rise of social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other websites, contestants who did poorer than average were guaranteed to be uploaded to YouTube, where they are often mocked, ridiculed, insulted, harassed, and cyberbullied for their poor performance on the show. In Vietnam, in order to prevent the at-home viewing public from harassing them with nasty comments online, zeronaires will be edited out of the show's broadcast, and not be shown on TV at all. On the UK version, on the rare occasion when a contestant was struggling on the first five questions, and came dangerously close to flunking out and leaving with nothing, UK host Chris Tarrant would always say that, "the questions are only easy if you know the answers," and on the rare occasion when a contestant actually did flunk out and leave with nothing, he would say that it was such a shame that they did not know on that occasion. See Category:Empty-handed for a list of contestants who went away with nothing. Gallery of international "Total Prize Money: 0 units of the local currency" screens This section needs expansion. F491FE6D-2DF2-4641-BFC8-118619F682F1.png|Brian Fodera (U.S.), January 20, 2000 23A80EF7-FA48-498D-B9A5-B647E45A43E9.jpeg|Unknown Contestant (Finnish) Screenshot (149).png|Tomoe Shinohara (Japan), January 2, 2001 Screenshot (163) b.png|Yelena Ivanova (First Russian Version), January 19, 2001 image.jpeg|Martin Baudrey (UK), 30 November, 2002 23591D0D-38EA-4FF3-866C-5D6E610107AC.jpeg|Chase Sampson (U.S.), October 26, 2006 Contestant wins 0 in India (KBC).jpg|Siddhartha Misra (India Hindi), February 13, 2007 Contestant wins 0 in Russia (classic format).jpg|Mikhail Goldich (Russia), April 4, 2009 Lovi Yu wins $0.png|Lovi Yu (U.S.), January 19, 2010 Contestant wins 0 tenge in Kazakhstan.jpg|Dinmukhammed Aytjanov (Kazakhstan, for Russian-speaking people), January 27, 2018 Contestant wins 0 in Poland.jpg|Krzysztof Koniuszek (Poland), September 27, 2018 Contestant wins 0 in Bulgaria.jpg|Ivelin Atanasov (Bulgaria), November 1, 2018 Contestant walked away with 0 rubles in Russia.jpg|Boris Grachevsky and Yuliya Volkova (Russia) in extra-high-risk format, April 20, 2019 Contestant wins 0 in Slovenia.jpg|Gregor Grahor (Slovenia), March 27, 2019 Contestant wins 0 in Nepal.jpg|Garina B. S. (Nepal), May 6, 2019 References Category:Empty-handed Category:Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Category:Gameplay